David Fincher: A Film Title RetrospectiveArt of the Title.com has an interview with David Fincher about his title sequences. Terrific article. Includes some really nice clips from his films. They gloss pretty quickly over Zodiac (fine, never was a fan of the titles nor the film) and Fincher isn't keen on discussing Alien 3 (a movie we did not hate).

Dirty Laundry
Thomas Jane as put together a ten-minute long Punisher "fan film" for the big San Diego Comic Con. It's good stuff, assuming you enjoyed his 2004 Punisher movie (which was also good, despite John Travolta as the heavy).

"This custom chair is designed to mimic the seat of kings in the Seven Kingdoms. On the show, the Iron Throne was constructed by Aegon I Targaryen, the first king of the Seven Kingdoms. He made it from the swords surrendered by his enemies. Legend has it, it's made of a thousand swords that took 59 days to hammer out into a throne."

Sadly, HBO went with fiber-glass and resin rather than the melted blades of vanquished enemies. Still impressive. I went ahead and ordered one for the office here at work. Put it down as "ergonomic chair" on the expense report so as to forestall any suspicion the suits in Finance may have.

A buddy of mine saw this, the price tag, the fiber-glass, and concluded he would not pay 30k - even if it were made of real swords. That is a fiscally responsible response. Now, if the swords were actually from my fallen enemies, the price tag might be justified. However, there are two show-stopping issues:

1. I do not believe even a single one of my enemies owns a sword.

2. Even if they did, I have not yet acquired enough enemies to forge an iron ottoman, much less an entire chair.

The Walkie Talkie DeadMore Glove and Boots "video blog" hi-larity. No point in clickin' if you aren't down the The Walking Dead. A great show, despite some really drawn-out plot lines. "Take your finger off the button, Rick!"

Functional Akira bikeAdditional photos (and Japanese details) right here. Read all six volumes of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga late last year. Fantastic stuff. Stupifyingly detailed artwork with a story far more accessible than the confounding animated movie of the same name. Pacing was a little slow, however. Felt like the story could've been wrapped up in 2,000 pages instead of 12,000 pages.

Turkish Star WarsWhy pony up for fancy special effects when you can splice Star Wars into your movie? You really need only endure a few minutes to appreciate the absolute depths of the terribleness at work here.

They Have a Plan
The Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome trailer that was shown at Wondercon last weekend is now available to the masses. From the BSG wiki: "Blood and Chrome is a television pilot (in production as of February, 2011) that follows the exploits of a young William Adama during the First Cylon War."

The soundtrack - that sets the pace of the editing - is Trent Reznor's Reznorified "Immigrant Song" cover, originally done for the opening credits (and trailer) of David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

No word if this is a series or movie or what. I do know, from what my eyeballs were able to harvest out of the frenzied split second clips, it's looking better - and entirely more exciting - than my expectations. Hopefully Blood and Chrome will live up to this trailer, despite the lack of BSG mastermind Ronald Moore.

Universal Studios 100
As part of their 100th anniversary, Universal Studios contracted the Weta Workshop to cook up a new logo. Nice how they put together a spiffy video-overview of logos from the past century - the new deal dramatically zooms in at the :39 mark.

Good stuff. Appropriately over the top. No more Copperplate Gothic, which is fine indeed. Also now, apparently, "A Comcast Company".

I take it I've told you about my condition?
Designer guy Greg Burney cranked out this very spiffy timeline for the movie Momento. Don't click if you haven't seen the film (one of our Top Five for 2001). Sounds like Burney is looking to turn it into a print for the Guy Pearce fans to buy.

2011 Year End Movie Review
Aught-eleven closes down with an astonishingly low number of films seen in a theater - single digits, the lowest on record. Probably the lowest since I was old enough to sit upright. Reasons for the downswing are both abundant and obvious: theaters are too expensive, too quiet, and contain too many people sittin' in or around the "good" seats. I'm getting old.

The overall score for the year was 69. While slightly above average, that's a disappointing number. Far from the goal of two-per-weekend. Must focus on less work, more relaxing in '12.

Top Five:The Fighter, Harry Potter Deathly Hallows 2, Winter's Bone, Drive, and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (which should probably be unseated by The King's Speech, but sheer amount of fun we had watching Tucker and Dale must be recognized). Runner-ups include the Swedish Girl with the Dragon/Fire/Hornets trilogy, Super 8, Hesher (a "boy movie", the ladies tell me), Monsters, and No Regrets for Our Youth (super early Korusawa).

Bottom Three:In Time, The Hangover Pt. II (despite appropriately low expectations), and House (incomprehensibly bizarre Japanese horror from 1977). That ugly trio held off The American, Source Code, Arthur, and Bellflower (the independent movie that isn't nearly as good as you may have heard).

There was a hope we'd be polishing off the rest of the Akira Kurosawa portfolio in 2011. Dreams killed that hope. Mustering the desire to watch that film is proving insurmountably difficult. Still, we're down to the final two of thirty-two. Gonna power through it, and knock out the final movie - The Quiet Duel, which features Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune and is the only Kurosawa film not available on Netflix.

The most anticipated for 2012: Hunger Games (still need to read the books), Moonrise Kingdom (despite the over-the-top Wes Anderson-ness of it all), Dark Knight Rises, World War Z, and, to cap off the year, The Hobbit: A Highly Anticipated Journey.